skip to main |
skip to sidebar
INT. CAFETERIA - DAY
Bill sits at a table by himself. He has a newspaper and a plate with scrambled eggs, toast and a slice of cantaloupe.
The headline of the newspaper says: "Hospital Director Resigns."
Bill looks down to his plate and picks up the cantaloupe. He takes a bite.
The headline of the newspaper now reads: "CDC: "Aluminum not responsible for memory loss."
Bill is holding a honeydew, there is a bite taken out of it. He takes another.
The headline of the newspaper says: "Bill Janus indicted in hospital scandal."
Bill puts down the paper and uses a knife and fork to cut his steak. Someone coughs behind him. He turns his head and June is standing at the kitchen sink washing dishes. She wipes the back of her hand on a dish towel.
Bill picks up the copy of Gray's Anatomy he has been reading. He looks at a picture of the liver.
Bill cuts the liver and onions on his plate. The sound of people clicking knives on water glasses makes him look over.
Janice sits next to him, she is wearing a wedding dress, he is wearing a tuxedo, he leans over and kisses her. He closes his eyes. When he opens them, he is kissing June, she is wearing a negligee.
Bill is in bed with June, he is wearing purple satin pajama bottoms. June is asleep. Bill gets out of bed and sits down on the floor Indian-style.
Bill plays with legos wearing purple flannel pajamas on the floor of the hospital room. A very old man sits on the bed watching him.
OLD MAN: Do you love me Solomon?
BILL: Is that my name?
Bill looks at the old man for a response. The old man looks confused, he is trying to find words to say.
OLD MAN: Well...um...ummm.
The left side of the screen starts to turn blue in an irregular moving patch. The patch consumes the old man and becomes a vaguely human shaped patch of blue.
BILL: Is that my name?
PATCH OF BLUE: Do you love me Bill?
BILL: Do you love me Solomon?
The patch of blue is now green.
PATCH OF GREEN: Kilimanjaro
Bill sits next to Solomon, everything else is white.
BILL AND SOLOMON: (simultaneously) It's hyphenated.
The patch is now a circle, the color shifts from blue to green and changes in diameter.
CIRCLE: Willy-um-Janus. Solly-mun-Janus
Solomon's face is very big. His lips don't move, his eyes blink rapidly.
SOLOMON: Butler-Janus. It's hyphenated.
CIRCLE: Solly-um-but-ler-willy-mun.
Bill and Solomon's heads are fused together at the back, Bill's face on the right, Solomon's on the left.
BILL AND SOLOMON: Janus.
Absolute Chaos. Several bits of the film overlapping each other, in increasing states of digital decay. Sounds from before, sometimes lines said by the wrong people, nothing disctinctly audible though. Everything progresses toward absolute white which is achieved about thirty seconds before absolute silence.
Credits come out of the white in a neutral gray and scroll to both sides of the frame from the center.
THE END
INT. BILL AND JUNE'S KITCHEN - DAYJANUS: Happy Anniversary.
JUNE: What?
JANUS: Thirteen years right?
JUNE: Thirteen years?
JANUS: January 17th.
JUNE: Thirteen years since what, Bill?
JANUS: Since we've been married.
JUNE: Two years, Bill. Three next June.
INT. JANICE AND BILL'S BEDROOM - DAYJanice and Bill come into the bedroom, it's nine o'clock in the morning and they have just returned from staying up all night in the hospital. Janice goes to the closet and starts to undress. Bill stands in the doorway and looks at her.
JANUS: I can't do this anymore.JANICE: I know how you feel. It seems impossible that this is happening.
JANUS: No, you don't. You don't know how I feel. This isn't an expression of frustration. I seriously cannot do this any more.
JANICE: What choice do we have?
JANUS: There are some people who are able to do things like this, there are people who can suffer through tragedy and feel like it makes them stronger. I'm not one of them.
JANICE: How do you know? How have you suffered before this?
JANUS: You, I think, are one of those people. You can be the hero in this, the patient one, the longsuffering one. I'm the villain here, I know it. I am designed to be the asshole.
JANICE: You need to go to sleep Bill, we have to go back in four hours.
JANUS: I am the weak one, the one to hate. The one that had to be lost. You can be the one who was somehow able to make it. The woman who's only son is in the hospital, who's husband left her, just when she needed him--
JANICE: What?
JANUS: Who's husband left when things started to look bad, he just dropped her, left everything there his son, his house, and found another life, another woman to live with.
JANICE: Stop it. Bill. Stop it.
JANUS: Who never saw him again.
Janice picks up a shoe from the ground and throws it at him.
JANICE: Quit it right now. How can you say those things?
JANUS: Who fought against him, begged him to stay but he wouldn't listen. When she held onto his feet when she punched him as hard as she could-- which is not very hard, she's a small woman--he pushed her away, he ran, he literally ran out the door, slammed the car door as she stood on the steps crying until she collapsed.
JANICE: Why are you doing this to me now. Stop. Please stop, I can't take this.
JANUS: You can. It's me who can't take it-- and he backed out of the driveway looking her in the eyes the whole time. You see he never had a soul, never really loved her, or his son, and he had to get out.
JANICE: Get out!
INT - JANICE'S KITCHEN - DAY
Bill and Janice are preparing food for Solomon's birthday party. Solomon, now fourteen years old is in the dining room, he has a basket of crayons in front of him. He is coloring pages in a coloring book. He draws overlapping squares of color, disregarding the lines on the pages..
Bill cuts beef and chicken into chunks for shish-kabobs, Janice is cutting the vegetables.
JANUS: It was two days late, they don't even charge a late fee for five.
JANICE: You think it's late fees I'm worried about? Bill, that was two days thinking that you had abandoned us, or that you had died, or worse.
JANUS: What's worse than that?
JANICE: There are things worse then death.
JANUS" Yeah, I've heard that before, but nobody can ever tell me what they are. I don't think there's anything worse than that. No matter how much you've accomplished…
JANICE: Don't try to change the subject.
JANUS: No, Janice, this is the problem, no matter how much you've planned and prepared, when you go, there will be something you never did, some part of being alive that you have never experienced. While you're alive there's at least the possibility that some day you'll do it, but when you're dead, you're nothing but a list of what you didn't do.
JANICE: (sarcastic) You know what, you're right, every time I think of Martin Luther King I think of all the things he didn't do.
JANUS: He doesn't think at all any more, he doesn't exist; everything we know about him is made up--what someone else thought about him. Even stuff he wrote down, we only know what it means based on what we think ourselves.
EXT. JANICE'S BACK DOOR - DAY
Bill tries to open the back door to Janice's house but it's locked. He picks up the doormat. Just dirt under there. He looks in the potted plants--nothing. He reaches up over the top of the door, there's the spare key.
He unlocks the door and puts the spare key back.
INT. JANICE'S HOUSE - DAY
Bill walks quietly and carefully through the kitchen into the living room.
The phone rings, startling him.
He walks straight back to a coffee table, opens the drawer. The drawer is full of junk, which he pushes aside, retrieves a photo album, messes the junk up and closes the drawer.
Bill locks the door from the inside before leaving.
EXT. JANICE'S NEIGHBORHOOD - DAY
Bill walks through the back yard, cuts through the neighbor's yards and walks around the corner to where his car is parked.
INT/EXT. BILL'S CAR - DAY
Bill sits in the driver's seat, the photo album is on the seat next to him. He looks at it sitting there. He looks back in the direction of Janice's house. He picks the photo album up.
EXT. JANICE'S NEIGHBORHOOD - DAY
Bill goes back through the neighbor's backyard, this time a little girl is playing in the sand box. He ignores her and goes through to Janice's yard. The little girl runs into her house.
EXT. JANICE'S BACK YARD - DAY
Bill reaches up and gets the spare key to the back door again.
INT/EXT. JANICE'S CAR - DAY
Janice is driving, talking on her cell phone with a hands-free device.
JANICE: I'll be there soon, call me at home.
INT. JANICE'S HOUSE - DAY
Bill walks through the kitchen quickly and into the living room. He opens the drawer. He hears a car pull into the driveway.
JANUS: Fuck.
He puts the photo album back into the drawer, closes it.
He runs back through the kitchen to the back door.
He opens the back door. Janice is standing with a bag of groceries looking through her keys.
JANICE: Bill.
INT. BILL AND JANICE'S KITCHEN - DAY
Bill winces in expectation
Janice squeezes his fingertip, a drop of blood bulges and starts to run. Janice catches the blood on a blood sugar test strip.
They wait in silence. The blood sugar test machine beeps. Janice looks down.
JANICE: (pleading) Bill.
JANUS: I’m sorry.
JANICE: Drink some water and walk around the block.
JANUS: I know.
JANICE: You’re like a little kid sometimes.
INT. SOLOMON'S BEDROOM - NIGHT
Solomon lies on his back on the top bunk of a sturdy white bunk bed. He stares at the ceiling. His breathing is heavy. He rocks his knee back and forth nervously with increasing speed. Soon he is breathing faster and faster to the point of hyperventilating. Janice approaches the bed.
SOLOMON: I think I'm going crazy.
JANICE: Go take a hot bath.
INT. BATHROOM - NIGHT
Bill sits in a bathtub. Condensation drips from the mirror. June paces back and forth outside the door with a cordless phone to her ear.
JUNE: I don’t know...an hour ago?
Junes disappears. Bill gets out of the tub, dripping. He dries himself off.
JUNE: At his age?
Bill closes the bathroom door, and turns the lock.
INT. BILL AND JUNE'S BEDROOM - NIGHT
Bill is undressing down to his boxers. June is brushing her teeth. She spits.
JUNE: I love you Bill.
JANUS: I know June. I always know you do.
JUNE: Bill. He loves you too. Don’t worry.
JANUS: That’s what everyone says. That’s what Janice said.
JUNE: Janice was there?
JANUS: No. On the phone. Don’t worry.
JUNE: I don’t.
INT. SOLOMON'S HOSPITAL ROOM - NIGHT
The chart on the bed reads "BUTLER-JANUS, SOLOMON TOBIAS"
Janus sits on Solomon's hospital bed, a cell phone to his ear. Solomon has emptied the bucket of all of the Legos.
JANUS: Janice Butler please.
During the pause, Solomon removes Legos from a small area of the floor and puts them back into the bucket. He curls up in the empty space.
JANICE: (on phone) Hello?
JANUS: It’s Bill. I’m at the hospital.
JANICE: Where in the hospital?
JANUS: In his room. They let me in.
JANICE: When?
JANUS: A few minutes ago.
JANICE: How is he?
JANUS: He hasn’t responded to me yet.
JANICE: You have to ask him direct question.
JANUS: I...I know that. I just wanted to watch him first.
JANICE: You should talk to him. He loves you.
JANUS: I just wanted to call you first.
JANICE: Don’t worry Bill, he won’t break.
JANUS: I wanted to let you know I was here, in case...so you would understand if he mentioned me or something.
JANICE: They would have told me. They keep a record.
JANUS: You’re right. I’m sorry. Sorry to bother you.
JANICE: No, it’s Ok. I understand. Don’t worry about him, just talk to him.
JANUS: I...I will. Thanks.
He hangs over and looks at the boy who is still curled up, his eyes are very wide open.
JANUS: Solomon?
No response.
JANUS: What are you making Solomon?
SOLOMON: The blocks fit together.
JANUS: That looks like a dog...Is that a dog?
SOLOMON: No. It’s blocks.
JANUS: Do you love me Solomon?
INT. KITCHEN - DAY
Bill Janus sits at his mother's kitchen table with his mother.
MOTHER: Why ‘Solomon?’
JANUS: After Janice’s Uncle.
MOTHER: Why’s he so great?
JANUS: He died as a baby.
MOTHER: You’ve named your first child after a failure to thrive.
JANUS: A second chance to thrive.
MOTHER: Solomon Janus...Solomonjanus...Kilimanjaro.
JANUS: Simon Butler-Janus.
MOTHER: Mother’s maiden name as a middle name. Just like you.
JANUS: Butler-Janus. It’s hyphenated. His middle name is Tobias.
INT. WAITING ROOM - NIGHT
BILL JANUS sits on a waiting room bench in a hospital. He stares into the camera, his eyes questioning the audience from the very beginning. Why are they watching him at a time like this? Why is there a time like this? He is staring like he knows that he has been created to suffer for the entertainment of strangers. He pauses in total resignation to whatever evil has caused him to exist, and then is overcome by the idea that he was placed here to suffer so that others may suffer less.
A voice comes from behind him.
NURSE: Mr. Janus.
Janus holds his stare for a second longer, then looks over his shoulder slightly bewildered. A nurse stands over him. There is no one else in the waiting room.
JANUS: Yes?
NURSE: I will take you in.
Janus stands up and takes a step toward her, remembers his bag, steps back and retrieves it. Looks up at the nurse realizing that she is taller than he is.
JANUS: Ok.
The nurse leaves the waiting room through a door and Janus follows. They walk through a long hospital corridor, in the first rooms the oldest people Bill has ever seen are sitting up in beds, they are connected to respirators and intravenous tubes. They are as brittle as dead spiders. Janus and the nurse turn a corner, now rooms contain retirement aged men and women eaten by cancers, drowning from congestive heart failure. They turn again and pass middle aged people, wheezing because their lungs do not work or yellow with kidney failure. The next turn leads to young adults, accident victims, blood-stained sheets. The final turn leads to children: leukemia, birth defects. The nurse stops in front of a doorway.
NURSE: In here.
Janus nods at her and enters. His seven-year-old son, SOLOMON, sits on the rough grey carpeting. He is taking legos out of a bucket. He sticks two or three together and sets them onto the floor, then gets a few more, sticks them together and puts them somewhere else. He is already surrounded by a patternless mess of different-sized Lego clusters.
JANUS: Solomon.
The boy looks up at his father.
